Millions for failure

Specifically, Dan Mudd, the CEO of Fannie Mae, is getting $9.3 million of severance for destroying his company. Richard Syron, the CEO of Freddie Mac, is getting $14.1 million--in part because of a clause he added to his employment contract two months ago, when it was clear the company was headed for disaster.

Click to expand...

Isn't that great? Run your company into the ground, get the taxpayers to bail you out, and earn... no get paid a few million.

What possible justification could there be for such a "severance package"?

Personally, I'd have liked it a lot more if they'd have simply let them go down the drain! No bail outs, no severence packages, no nothing, just let 'em sink below the waves like the Titanic!

Oh, and I know that someone is going to bring up about "what about the economy???" SCREW THAT! The Libtards have been screaming about how bad the economy is for the past 2 years, and THAT'S the reason that the housing market is in a slump, because people started believing that "the sky is falling, the sky is falling" bovine excrement that was being spewed by the LIBTARD TRAITORS! Well fine, they wanted to see a "bad economy", I'd have shown 'em one, IN SPADES, and on the Dim-O-Crap controlled Congress's watch!

I'm old enough to remember the last REAL recession we went through with Mr. Peanut in the White House, and not only did we survive it, we got 12 solid years of GOP control of the White House, and 11 years of TOTAL control of Congress in the bargain too, so I say LET'S DO IT AGAIN! It appears that the OBLIVIOTS on the left are entirely too stupid to study their history, so I say GREAT!!! Let's repeat it, so that maybe the next time, they won't be so quick to LIE OUT THEIR BUTTS about the economy when there's NOTHING WRONG WITH IT, just so they can have their little "self fulfilling prophesies", and win an election!

So, the failure was due to the government distorting the market, and therefore the poor witto CEOs deserved to have a fortune handed to them for nothing.

No, the government shouldn't be allowed to distort markets, but that's no justification for such a payment.

Click to expand...

Well, CEOs at such corporations will not work without a severance package.

Second, doing the job of a CEO is not doing nothing. Even if he screwed up, he still worked. Part of being CEO is that when anything goes wrong, you take all the heat. Case and point, this thread. So taking the crap goes with being CEO. You simple are not going to do that job unless there is enough benefits to make it worth your while.

Third... justifiable is not for us to decided. It's the board of directors who determine how must the position is worth, and what benefits are given. Just like if you own a business and decide your going to pay someone $20/hour, it doesn't matter if someone else thinks that isn't justified. It's not for them to choose, only you.

And the final point, which is what some of the others here have been trying to make, the only singular problem with this whole situation is that the government gave the company, money stolen from the public. That is the reason this is an issue. If GM pays a CEO a million dollars, and he drags the company to a pit, I don't give a rat's butt, because that was their money to blow on someone who didn't help.

But in this case, for our government, that is 10 trillion in debt, to take money from my check, and give it to a company that had a special protected status it never should have had, and ultimately caused the problem it's in... yeah that's a big deal.

Our government, gave a company a special protected status, allowed it to ignore governing rules that other companies in it's field had to follow, and because of this the company was fast and loose with it's practices, that led it to financial ruin.... then the government bailed out the company that it (due it it's status) caused to fail, with money stolen from tax payers. Yeah, I'm a bit ticked off about it. Blame government. It caused this.

I get it. You think the government has the responsibility of giving away millions to people who fail. Well, I suppose the government is really good at giving away millions, so that shouldn't be a problem for them. For the taxpayer, on the other hand, some of us object to our money being given away. I see you like the idea, but I really don't.

I get it. You think the government has the responsibility of giving away millions to people who fail. Well, I suppose the government is really good at giving away millions, so that shouldn't be a problem for them. For the taxpayer, on the other hand, some of us object to our money being given away. I see you like the idea, but I really don't.

Taxpayers are now on the hook for as much as $200 billion to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and if you want to know why, look no further than the rapid response to this bailout from House baron Barney Frank. Asked about Treasury's modest bailout condition that the companies reduce the size of their high-risk mortgage-backed securities (MBS) portfolios starting in 2010, Mr. Frank was quoted on Monday as saying, "Good luck on that," and that it would never happen.
[Barney Frank]

There you have the Fannie Mae problem in profile. Mr. Frank wants you to pick up the tab for its failures, while he still vows to block a reform that might prevent the same disaster from happening again.

At least the Massachusetts Democrat is consistent. His record is close to perfect as a stalwart opponent of reforming the two companies, going back more than a decade. The first concerted push to rein in Fan and Fred in Congress came as far back as 1992, and Mr. Frank was right there, standing athwart. But things really picked up this decade, and Barney was there at every turn. Let's roll the audiotape:

In 2000, then-Rep. Richard Baker proposed a bill to reform Fannie and Freddie's oversight. Mr. Frank dismissed the idea, saying concerns about the two were "overblown" and that there was "no federal liability there whatsoever."

Two years later, Mr. Frank was at it again. "I do not regard Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as problems," he said in response to another reform push. And then: "I regard them as great assets." Great or not, we'll give Mr. Frank this: Their assets are now Uncle Sam's assets, even if those come along with $5.4 trillion in debt and other liabilities.

Again in June 2003, the favorite of the Beltway press corps assured the public that "there is no federal guarantee" of Fan and Fred obligations.

A month later, Freddie Mac's multibillion-dollar accounting scandal broke into the open. But Mr. Frank was sanguine. "I do not think we are facing any kind of a crisis," he said at the time.

Three months later he repeated the claim that Fannie and Freddie posed no "threat to the Treasury." Even suggesting that heresy, he added, could become "a self-fulfilling prophecy."

In April 2004, Fannie announced a multibillion-dollar financial "misstatement" of its own. Mr. Frank was back for the defense. Fannie and Freddie posed no risk to taxpayers, he said, adding that "I think Wall Street will get over it" if the two collapsed. Yes, they're certainly "over it" on the Street now that Uncle Sam is guaranteeing their Fannie paper, and even Fannie's subordinated debt.

By early 2007, Mr. Frank was in charge of the House Financial Services Committee, arguing that he had long favored some kind of reform. "What blocked it [reform] last year," Mr. Frank said then, "was the insistence of some economic conservative fundamentalists in the Bush Administration who, to be honest, don't think there should be a Fannie Mae or a Freddie Mac." What really blocked it was Mr. Frank's insistence that any reform be watered down and not include any reduction in their MBS holdings.

In January of last year, Mr. Frank also noted one reason he liked Fannie and Freddie so much: They were subject to his political direction. Contrasting Fan and Fred with private-sector mortgage financers, he noted, "I can ask Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to show forbearance" in a housing crisis. That is to say, because Fannie and Freddie are political creatures, Mr. Frank believed they would do his bidding.

And this is exactly what Mr. Frank attempted to prove when the housing market started to go south. He encouraged the companies to guarantee more "affordable" mortgages, thus abetting their disastrous plunge into subprime and Alt-A loans. He also pushed for, and got, an increase in the conforming-loan limits to allow Fan and Fred to securitize and guarantee larger mortgages. And he pressured regulators to ease up on their capital requirements -- which now means taxpayers will have to make up that capital shortfall.

But the biggest payoff for Mr. Frank is the "affordable housing" trust fund he managed to push through as one political price for the recent Fannie reform bill. This fund siphons off a portion of Fannie and Freddie profits -- as much as $500 million a year each -- to a fund that politicians can then disburse to their favorite special interests.

This is also why Mr. Frank won't tolerate cutting the companies' MBS portfolios. He knows those portfolios (bought with debt borrowed at taxpayer-subsidized rates) were a main source of Fannie's profits before the housing crash, and he figures that once this crisis passes they can do it again. And this time, his fund will get part of the loot.
* * *

Mr. Frank has had many accomplices from both parties in his protection of Fan and Fred. But he was and is among the most vociferous and powerful. In any other area of American life, this track record would get a man run out of town. In Washington, he's hailed as a sage whose history of willful error will be forgotten faster than taxpayers can write a check for $200 billion.

I have said for nearly two years, as a result of watching this unfold in CONGRESS on C-Span, that these quasi-governmental lenders would go under due to the actions of Democrats... I also pointed out nearly two years ago this collapse would lead to a total government takeover... But I have only been on this forum for 4 months and only pointed this out 3 months ago, at which time, like all the others, I was written off as a right-wing loon.

With such a large cost for the bailout to the American taxpayer, I take no pride in saying:
"See, I told you so!"

And one more thing... Nobody will call for Barney Frank to be removed for his incompetency, he's a Democrat, he will more likely be praised for his diligent work and service to his country.